A Reading and Conversation with U.S. Poet Laureate Charles Simic on Tuesday, Mar. 18

Charles Simic's most recent book of poems, That Little Something, will be published this spring by Harcourt Books.

--Photo by Philip Simic.

New York, NY – Mar. 10, 2008 –
Charles Simic, Baruch College's Spring 2008 Sidney Harman Writer-in-Residence and the 15th U.S. poet laureate, will lead a reading and discussion on his works with members of the Baruch community on Tuesday, Mar. 18. The event will begin at 5:45 pm in the Newman Conference Center, 151 E. 25th Street, and is free and open to the public.

Simic is an award-winning poet and essayist whose work has been described as “unusually accessible and plainspoken” by the New York Times. He was appointed U.S. poet laureate, an official position selected by the Librarian of Congress, in August 2007. Born on the eve of World War II in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, he moved to America as a teenager and grew up in Chicago and New York. His 18 published collections of poems include My Noiseless Entourage; The Voice at 3:00 A.M.: Selected Late and New Poems; and The World Doesn’t End, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1990.

A self-described "city poet", Simic is teaching a workshop on modern poetry and the city to advanced students at Baruch this semester. “He’s thrown himself into his teaching and is really enthusiastic about Baruch’s student poets. He’s truly a man who loves to teach,” said Professor Roslyn Bernstein, director of the Harman program.

Susie Gomez, one of the students in the class, agreed, describing the workshop format as "very democratic. We get to read everybody’s work each week. Professor Simic is always trying to find constructive things to say about everyone’s work."

The Harman Writer-in-Residence program is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. Simic is the 20th author to participate since the program’s inception.